


Love Through The Years

by awgaskarth0805



Category: All Time Low (Band)
Genre: One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awgaskarth0805/pseuds/awgaskarth0805
Summary: Jack falls in love with the boy he met on his first day of eighth grade.
Kudos: 5





	Love Through The Years

**Author's Note:**

> This is a request!

“Sorry to bother you but is anyone sitting in this seat?” a timid voice asked Jack, making him put his phone away and turn around. Suddenly, Jack was face to face with a brown-haired boy who looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack.  
“No, it’s all yours. What’s your name? I’m Jack,” Jack said as the other boy sat in the seat.  
“I’m Alex, I’m a new student,” Alex said back. Jack noticed Alex shaking some and decided to make it his mission to befriend him. He couldn’t explain it, but Jack felt like it was his responsibility to help Alex feel welcomed at his new school.  
“I can tell, you seem a bit nervous. I get it, but you’ve got nothing to worry about, I’ll make sure that you have a good first day, and year,” Jack declared, making both of them smile.  
“Wow, thanks, I didn’t think I’d make a friend this quickly,” Alex admitted.  
“Well, you have! So, where did you used to go to school?” Jack asked, genuinely interested in knowing everything that he could about Alex.  
“I’m not from here, my family and I moved here from England,” Alex replied.  
“That’s so cool!” Jack exclaimed as Alex started to settle down. Before Alex could reply, their new teacher walked in, officially starting the school day.   
Jack wasn’t sure what it was, but something about Alex seemed special to him. Normally, Jack would never make friends with someone this quickly, but talking with Alex felt different than talking with anyone else. Jack couldn’t put his finger on why, but he knew his friendship with Alex would be special.  
\------------  
“Dude, I’m so glad you’re finally coming to my house to hang out!” Jack exclaimed as Alex and himself made their way through Jack’s house, and to his bedroom.   
Two months had passed since the first day of eighth grade, and they’d become very fast friends. Jack loved being around Alex, he felt happy around him, and spending time with Alex felt special, and gave him butterflies, which Jack couldn’t explain.   
“Me too! I’m glad that our schedules finally lined up!” Alex replied.  
“Same here! Okay, you’re about to see the coolest room that any eighth grader has ever had. One, two, three!” Jack said, excitedly opening up the door to the room that he’d spent hours cleaning earlier, in preparation for Alex’s visit. Jack’s blue room was covered in posters, most of them being pictures of the same band.  
“Who’s blink-182? You seem to have a lot of posters of them,” Alex pointed out, sitting on Jack’s bed.  
“Are you serious? You don’t know who blink-182 are?” Jack asked, sounding surprised.  
“I have no clue who they are, I mostly listen to the music my parents like,” Alex admitted.  
“Well, you’re in for a treat, we’re going to listen to the greatest album of all time, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket!” Jack exclaimed, quickly popping a CD into his stereo, then joining Alex on his bed. The first song started to play, and Jack smiled as he saw Alex’s face light up.  
“This is awesome!” Alex stated, jamming out to the song. Jack looked at Alex and felt the all too familiar butterflies in his stomach when he really looked into Alex’s eyes.  
“I’m g-glad you l-like it,” Jack said, stuttering some.  
“Are you okay?” Alex asked, noticing the shift in Jack’s tone.  
“Um, yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, just listen to the music!” Jack said with a big smile.  
“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Alex said, going back to jamming out to the music.   
As much as Jack wanted to pay attention to his favorite songs of all time, he couldn’t help but focus on Alex, his eyes and smile put Jack into a trance that he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to get out of.  
\-------------  
“So, I watched the tutorials you sent me and played through them, but I don’t think I can play them as well as you were expecting,” Alex said as he followed Jack down to the basement, holding his Fender.   
They were now sophomores in high school, it had been two years since they met in eighth grade, and one since Jack realized that he was gay, and was in love with his best friend. He’d never told this to anyone, Alex was straight, so Jack knew that the two of them getting together would never happen.   
At this point, Jack had accepted that he’d always love Alex, and Alex would never know, even though this crushed Jack more and more as the days went on.  
“I’m sure you’ll play it fine. You said the same thing the last time we jammed together, and you’d absolutely killed it. Come on, play it for me,” Jack insisted as they sat on the couch. A nervous look appeared on Alex’s face as he started to play the song that Jack told him he had to learn.   
Watching Alex play was an exciting experience for Jack- he loved to see the look of concentration and passion on Alex’s face, he loved to watch Alex’s hand move up and down the frets, and he loved how natural it looked for Alex to play.   
Jack ended up tuning out Alex’s playing, and lovingly stared at his best friend, completely consumed with the romantic feelings he was hiding.  
“Hey, did you hear me? I asked how that sounded,” Alex said, waving his hand in Jack’s face.  
“Shit, sorry, that was so awesome, man! I knew you could do it!” Jack exclaimed.  
“Thanks for believing in me,” Alex replied with a smile that melted Jack’s heart.  
“N-no problem,” Jack said, feeling his face grow red and his heart start to beat faster; a feeling that Alex had caused in Jack quite a bit over the last two years.  
\-----------------  
“Shit, it’s already one in the morning?” Jack asked himself as he turned out his ceiling light and climbed into bed. He had a test in his first period the next morning that he’d spent the past few hours cramming for.   
It was now his senior year in high school, so Jack knew that he had to try enough to pass his classes so he could graduate and get out of high school. Jack and Alex had formed a band, All Time Low, with a couple of friends, and the four of them wanted to do big things after high school was officially over.   
Of course, Jack’s crush on Alex had continued to grow, and it started to really hurt him when Alex got a girlfriend. Jack acted happy for Alex, and he really was, but everything in him still wished that it were him who Alex loved.   
Jack shut his eyes so he could drift off to sleep but jumped when he heard a tap at his window. Slowly, Jack crawled to the end of the bed to look out the window, but immediately calmed down when he saw that the late-night visitor was Alex.   
Jack turned on the lamp on his bedside table, then quietly opened the window, and saw that Alex looked upset, and had tears in his eyes.  
“Alex, what’s going on?” Jack asked, helping Alex into his room through the window. They sat on Jack’s bed, and Alex started to wipe his eyes.  
“I had a fight with my parents over my grades. They said I was stupid because of that bad grade I got on the history exam we took last week,” Alex stated, crying more as he explained the situation.   
Without saying anything, Jack pulled Alex into a hug, and Alex continued to cry as he buried his head into Jack’s shoulder. Jack felt his heart break, he hated to see Alex so upset; he really wanted to say that he loved him, and that everything would be okay because of that, but Jack knew that he couldn’t do that.  
“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Jack offered.  
“I’d love that, thank you, Jack,” Alex said with a small smile that made Jack’s heart flutter. Jack helped Alex get set up on the floor, then the two of them started to fall asleep, Jack think about Alex and his feelings for him as he slowly drifted off.  
\-----------  
“I’m really sorry I can’t hang out today, Jack, my girlfriend wants to go to a movie, and I haven’t gone on a proper date with her in a while. I hope you understand,” Alex said through the phone to Jack, who was laying in his bed, as a disappointed look took over his face.   
“Yeah, um, I totally do, no worries. We can hang out some other time. I hope you guys have a good date,” Jack replied, trying not to sound hurt.  
“I knew you’d get it; you’ve always been the best about that. I’ll see you at band practice tomorrow!” Alex exclaimed, trying to lighten the mood.  
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll talk to you later, man,” Jack replied, hanging up the phone. After taking a deep breath, Jack threw his phone down, and put a pillow over his face, feeling frustrated. Jack was glad that Alex was so happy and in love, but he still wished that it were with him.   
They were a month away from graduating high school, then going on their first real tour as a band, which was a big deal. Due to this, Alex’s girlfriend wanted to spend a lot of time with Alex, since they wouldn’t get to see each other again until the end of the summer.   
After all of this time, Jack had still never told anyone about his crush, he didn’t want to risk his friendship with Alex, and he didn’t trust anyone enough to talk about it; the only person he would be able to trust with something this big was Alex, which was the problem.   
After a few minutes, Jack sat up some, and scrolled through his phone, hoping to reset his mood some. Not much later, he heard a knock at his bedroom door, to his surprise.   
“Come in,” Jack yelled, too lazy to get up and answer the door himself. Zack walked through, then over to where Jack was.  
“Hey, I think I left my amp chord here when we wrote that riff together the other day, have you seen it? I went to go practice, but I couldn’t find that damn chord anywhere,” Zack explained.  
“Oh yeah, I put it in my desk drawer, I think,” Jack replied, a sad tone to his voice. Jack slowly got up and walked over to his desk, quickly finding Zack’s chord when he opened the top drawer.   
“Here it is, I thought it was mine, to be honest,” Jack said, handing Zack his chord.   
“Thanks, man. Hey, is something up? You seem a bit down,” Zack said, taking a seat on Jack’s bed as Jack did the same.  
“It’s stupid shit, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine,” Jack replied with a fake smile.  
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? I know you normally go to Alex with stuff like this, but I’m here if you want to talk,” Zack offered.  
“Well, it’s actually kind of about Alex,” Jack admitted, looking at the floor.  
“Oh, is this something to do with the huge crush that you have on him?” Zack asked.  
“How the fuck do you know about that? Did you read my journal or something?” Jack asked, suddenly alert and nervous.  
“Dude, I don’t have to read your diary to know that you like Alex. It’s pretty obvious, in my opinion,” Zack continued.  
“Shit, really? Does Rian know? Oh gosh, does Alex know?” Jack asked, his face growing red.  
“I’ve never talked about it with Rian, but I doubt he knows, he doesn’t pick up on stuff like this. As far as Alex is concerned, I can guarantee you that he doesn’t know, either. You two have been best friends for a while, if he hasn’t confronted you about it yet, I bet it’s because he has no idea. I’ve always been good at picking up on stuff like this. I can see the way you look at Alex, how you get jealous when his girlfriend is mentioned, all of it,” Zack explained.   
“I guess that makes sense. Something about him just seemed really special the day that we met back in eighth grade. We instantly became friends, and I felt this deeper connection, which I eventually realized were romantic feelings. I know he’s straight and that ‘us’ will never happen, but I still can’t help but like him in that way. It sucked when he was single but seeing him so happy with his girlfriend just kills me. I hate to say that, I’m glad that he has someone who makes him so happy, but,” Jack trailed off.  
“You wish he was happy like that with you,” Zack finished.  
“Exactly,” Jack said in a small voice.   
“Well, I don’t really know what to say. You already know that this won’t ever happen, which must be really hard to know. I can promise you that Alex loves you as a best friend, and always will, does that at least help some?” Zack asked.  
“I guess it does. I mean, I’d rather be his best friend wishing for something more, than to not have him in my life at all,” Jack stated.  
“That’s good, Jack. You know Alex isn’t trying to hurt you on purpose,” Zack continued.  
“Oh, I know, this is all on me, which is why it sucks so much,” Jack replied with a cold laugh.  
“Well, I’ve never told anyone about you liking him, and I never will. Since you can’t talk to Alex about this, you can always come to me, if you want,” Zack offered.   
“I think I’ll take you up on that, dealing with feeling this way on my own for the past few years has been really hard,” Jack replied.  
“Well, I’m always a call or text away. Hey, I have to get going, but don’t stay wrapped up in this for too long, you know Alex wouldn’t want you to be so upset,” Zack pointed out, standing up.  
“That’s true, thanks, Zack. I’ll see you at practice tomorrow,” Jack replied.  
“See you later, man,” Zack said, walking out of Jack’s room. Jack took a minute to assess his feelings.   
He knew that he’d always want to be with Alex in a romantic way, but he also knew how lucky he was that they met on that day of eighth grade; the day that the universe gave Jack the greatest friend he’d ever have.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, this is a request for someone on my Tumblr! So, this is extremely different from anything I've written before, and I think I like how it turned out. I've read fics like this before, and never thought I could write one, so I guess I proved myself wrong! I hope that you guys liked this, especially since it was so different! I currently have a few requests that I'm working on, but am always willing to add more to my list, so feel free to send them in if you have them! As I've said, I decided on a posting schedule of Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, since having a "routine" has helped me quite a bit now that school is over for me. Thank you all for reading, and I'll have another new fic up for you guys on Sunday! Lots of love, Liv.


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